GW Lightning Arc Side Stories SUMMER
by LoveyouHateyou
Summary: Treize and Zechs trying to achieve a certain balance... one needy, the other one accomplished... or are they?


**Lighting Arc Side Stories – Summer**

**Fandom: **GW AC  
**Rating: **M/NC-15  
**Warnings:**male/male affection and references to sex.  
**Summary: **Treize and Zechs trying to achieve a certain balance... one needy, the other one accomplished... or are they?

xxx

Summer.

The scent of drying grass and baking earth.

Memories.

Treize, on his back in the middle of the meadow in the middle of the forest, his head pillowed on his arms, eyes wide as he gazes up at the gleaming blue sky. "How come? I always remember rain… snow…"

Zechs, stretched out beside him, touching from knee to shoulder. Just in case. "How flattering."

"Come now, what do you expect? You arrived here soaking, shivering… like a wet puppy, wrapped in my father's coat."

Zechs tenses. "You!"

Treize shakes a little. A suppressed laugh? His tone betrays nothing but tenderness. "Milliardo… Milushka… how old were we? You looked so small then…"

A nervy sigh. "Treize."

"Yes. I love you."

"Don't distract."

"Hm?"

Zechs begins to rise. "I said…"

"Yes." Lips touching, an arm clamping Zechs down on his back until Treize is satisfied that he won't argue. He regards his friend with a searching gaze, curious and oddly restrained. "I always wondered… when did you know?"

Zechs shrugs; he props himself up on his elbows, head lolling back, eyes closing against the sun that shines warmly down on his face. "Always. I always knew."

It feels good to just be. Barefoot and easy in blue jeans and white tee, his hair flowing free and messy over his shoulders, Treize by his side in tan khakis and a loose white summer shirt, his reddish hair mussed, his pale face flushed by a slight sunburn.

Treize's arm slides from Zechs' broad chest to his waist, lingers a bit, then falls away as Treize leans back too, blinking against the polished sky where small, whispy streaks of silver drift in an unfelt breeze. "But… why?"

"Why do I breathe? Why do I fuck? Why do you eat?"

The obscenity sounds incongruous from such handsome lips, but it serves as a reminder. Treize smiles wanly. "Because I am hungry. Because I want to live."

"Because you NEED to," Zechs snaps, and it sounds angry.

A small pause. A pale yellow butterfly dances past, dizzy with the scent of the summer meadow. Its colour reminds Treize of hair and sex.

Zechs blows a few strands of whiteblond out of his face. "What about you?"

Treize drifts back from his contemplation of sky and butterfly, and meets cool blue eyes. "I… had rather more trouble finding out."

"How so?"

Treize shrugs and lies back down in the grass, yellow and green stalks rising high into the sky from where he is now. "I just never thought… it isn't exactly encouraged where I come from. My father preferred not to see it. Perhaps he actually never realised because it's something that simply doesn't happen in our family. And Mother… well, she was not exactly happy about it either." He breathes in deeply, soaking up the honey aroma of ripe grass. "In a way… it's horrible, but perhaps it's better he is not around now. He would never have tolerated this."

"I know all that. But you? What about you?"

Treize lazily plucks a stalk of grass and begins to chew on it. "I was… it knocked me. I didn't know why I always found something wrong with all those girls I met."

"And bedded?"

A small pause, then, "Some. It always ended the same – arguments, silence, me breaking up with them. And I hated fags."

"Oh."

In the distance, they can hear the murmur of the stream that runs through the forest that surrounds the clearing. For a while, it's all they hear, mingling with birdsong sleepy from the midday heat, and the humming of all the small life around them.

"The idea of… getting done up my ass wasn't appealing," Treize broke the silence between them.

"Still isn't," Zechs interjected quietly.

"I can't help it."

"You sleep with me alright."

"I love you."

"I love you too."

"Then perhaps," Treize spits out the stalk and turns to look at his companion, his hand stroking slowly from Zechs' shoulder down his arm, "that's all there is. All that counts." It sounds a little like pleading as he says it.

Fingers entwine. Zechs closes his eyes, hiding, head sinking forward, swathes of silverblond sliding over his face. "I wish…"

Treize lifts their linked hands and kisses Zechs' pulse. "Yes?"

"You'd let me… just once in a while." A soft huff. "Years… years, and you still don't quite trust me. How is it different when I let you do this to me?"

This time, the silence grows long. It has a weight that presses down on them, between them, and squeezes the words from their minds. "You like it. I don't."

"At least I try things."

"I'm not fond of experiments."

"Really."

"Not this kind, no."

There are silences, and there is stillness, and there is the murmur of the stream, the aroma of the forest that now wafts across on a sluggish breeze, lacing the air with the scent of resin and pine needles. The earth beneath them feels cool and damp.

Wide-eyed, Zechs stares at the crumbs of moist soil between the bent stalks of grass. "You don't trust me."

"I love you." Treize ducks a little in an attempt to see his eyes, but Zechs stays like that, coiled up, staring down, unmoving and tense.

"You're not like me. You'll find a girl one day, and that's that."

"I don't think so."

The lightness of summer has left them. Zechs radiates mistrust. Jealousy. Anger. Insecurity. "Well, while it lasts…"

"I won't end it." Treize does not attempt to salvage the situation. He states a fact, and his tone is quiet, suffused with calm. The solidity of a rock in a stormy sea. Rigid, infuriatingly stolid, utterly dependable.

"There always are two sides to everything."

Treize lets go of him. "Sometimes two are not enough."

"Or too many." Zechs shakes his head. "Man, Tre… you drive me crazy."

A small smile. "That's the idea, my friend. I have to keep you interested."

Zechs lifts his head and stares at him. Treize's smile has a wistful edge, his gaze is placid but not open.

It is as much as Zechs will be allowed to glimpse of Treize's fears.

It is enough.

Zechs leans over to kiss him, and Treize closes his eyes when Zechs cups his face and deepens the kiss. Treize tastes renewed confidence. Longing. Reassurance. The restless will to dominate, barely contained by tenderness. Precarious, shifting, innate harshness tempered by need and affection.

Need.

"You keep me like this?" Zechs murmurs, his voice rough, his breathing ragged.

Treize combs his fingers through a tangled mass of silverblond. "Yes."

"Safer?"

"I'm all for safe sex."

They share a smile, then a small laugh.

Summer returns to them.

xxx

The End


End file.
